Friday, January 04, 2008

NPPA 2008 Best Of Photojournalism Contest

The National Press Photographers Association's 2008 Best Of Photojournalism contest is now officially open for entries, and some new rules and a few category changes are now posted on NPPA's Web site.

There are no entry fees for NPPA's Best Of Photojournalism competition and the contest is open to all photographers, picture editors, and Web site producers around the world, not just NPPA's members. Helpful "How To Enter" resources are also available online in English, French, German, and Russian.

The online entry mechanism is quick and easy, and NPPA staff in Durham are standing by to help with answers to any of your questions.

All entrants must obtain a Contest Identification Code to enter any division of the contest. Please go to this link to log in, and you will be automatically registered for the contest.

The Best Of Photojournalism contest committee said they made several rule changes this year in an effort to sharpen competition and highlight new stories, as well as to reflect the changing face of photojournalism around the world.

Major changes this year include:

The Still Photography division adds several categories, and eliminates some others.

• Last year's Humor category has been eliminated.

• The Road to Office documents the essence of the campaign trail and its impact on a candidate for elected office.

• Individual and Team Sports Action have been merged, and a new category, Sporting Field of Play, has been added.

• A new category has been created to recognize Non-traditional Photojournalism Publishing by independent presses, boutique wire services, photojournalism agencies, and the like.

• The Natural Disaster Picture Story and Environmental Picture Story categories have been merged.

• A new Investigative Issue Picture Story category has been created for watchdog reporting and in-depth documentary work.

The Web Site division sees some category changes as well, but there are also more fundamental changes to the site classification system, to recognize great work that has been done in the last year and to level the playing field within each class.

• The size cutoff for Large sites has been moved down to 1 million unique views per month, which will allow several mid-sized sites to compete against the larger sites.

• Bloggers are getting moved up as well, to compete directly against other Independent sites. The blog-only categories no longer exist.

• There are now Web Video categories in the Web Sites division, in addition to those in the Video News Photography division. The categories and judging focus are different in the two divisions, so entrants are encouraged to read the rules carefully in deciding where to enter.

To read all of the rules in detail, please visit bop.nppa.org.

The 2007 Best Of Photojournalism competition drew entries of more than 55,000 still images and layouts, over 1,500 Web sites, and over 900 video entries from more than 50 countries around the world. NPPA contest coordinator Thomas Kenniff said that he expects the rule changes will sharpen competition and highlight emerging trends and stories, and that he expects the 2008 Best Of Photojournalism contest to be the biggest and most exciting year ever in the competition's seven year history.

Kenniff reminds contest participants that the entry period ends February 1, 2008, this time and that this year's entry period is one week shorter than in the past. "While we know photojournalists are deadline-driven, NPPA encourages everyone to get their submissions in as early as possible," Kenniff said. NPPA expects more entries this year than ever before, and with the shorter entry window the contest committee expects that the last-minute crush is likely to be significantly more intense than in previous years.

This year's Best Of Photojournalism competition is sponsored by Canon and The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Judges for the four divisions of competition will be announced at a later date.

For more information on NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism contest please visit bop.nppa.org or contact Kenniff at contests@nppa.org.

The Best Of Photojournalism is sponsored by Canon, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and the National Press Photographers Association.

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